If you’re tweaking your Windows 11 PC and feel the interface is missing a bit of “personality,” the taskbar is a great place to start: it’s always on screen (unless you hide it) and, with a couple of settings, it can take on the accent color that best matches your wallpaper, your theme, or your current obsession with a specific shade. The key is knowing where the option lives—and, more importantly, why it sometimes shows up disabled, something that can trip up even people who know their way around the system.
In this guide, we’ll go over how to change the taskbar and Start menu color in Windows 11, and we’ll also look at a few extra customization options you’ll find in the same place. Because, let’s be honest: what’s the point of a carefully set-up system if the taskbar stays in “generic out-of-the-box” mode?
How to change the taskbar and Start menu color
This setting is done from the Settings app, and Windows 11 makes it fairly straightforward as long as you meet one condition: you can’t apply a custom color to the taskbar if you’re using Light mode. In other words, the system lets you pick an accent color, but it only applies it to Start and the taskbar when Windows is set to Dark—which explains why the toggle sometimes appears greyed out.
To begin, open Settings with the shortcut Windows + I. If you prefer the classic route, you can also press the Start button (the Windows logo on the taskbar) and open Settings from the gear icon. Once you’re in, go to Personalization, where Windows groups appearance settings like themes, backgrounds, and colors.
Under Personalization, open Colors. This is where most of the interesting stuff happens: the display mode, transparency effects, and of course the accent color. In the Choose your mode selector (it appears as a dropdown), select Dark. This isn’t just an aesthetic preference—it’s required for Windows to allow the taskbar to be colored.
Now scroll down to Accent color and choose one of the available colors from the grid. If none of them work for you, Windows offers View colors to create a custom one—handy if you want to match your wallpaper precisely or avoid overly loud combinations, “permanent gamer RGB” style. Still, even after you pick the color, it won’t apply to the taskbar yet.
The last step is to turn on Show accent color on Start and taskbar. Once enabled, your chosen color will apply to both the Start menu and the taskbar. If the toggle is disabled, go back and double-check that you’re truly in Dark mode, because in Light mode that option is locked.
As an additional tweak, on the same screen you can enable Show accent color on title bars and window borders, which extends your chosen color to more elements across the system. It’s subtle, but it helps the desktop feel cohesive—especially if you like the interface to have a recognizable “theme” beyond just the wallpaper.
What the Windows 11 taskbar is and what it includes
The taskbar is Windows 11’s quick operations hub and, by default, it sits at the bottom of the screen. It’s more than just a strip of icons: it brings together shortcuts and features that shape how you move around the system every day—so customizing its look makes sense, but understanding its parts does too.
The most obvious element is the Start menu, which acts as an app launcher and an access point for settings and files, along with options related to your user account. Next to it is the search bar, designed to find files, apps, and web results directly from the desktop—click, type, done.
Windows 11 also includes Widgets, accessible from their dedicated button (with an icon that often shows the weather). They’re interactive panels that organize information and can be checked from the taskbar without taking over the desktop. And for anyone who works with multiple windows, there’s Task View, the button with two overlapping rectangles that shows thumbnails of open apps and even virtual desktops.
Finally, there’s the pinned apps area, which is the system’s true “dock”: one-click access to the apps you use every day. Windows typically pins a few by default, like File Explorer and Microsoft Edge, though most people end up tailoring it to their workflow. In this context, the taskbar color isn’t just decorative—it also affects contrast and readability, especially if you juggle lots of apps and need to recognize icons at a glance.
More quick customization options from the taskbar
If you’re already in desktop “tuning” mode, Windows 11 offers handy taskbar settings without any hassle, all grouped in one easy-to-reach place: right-click the taskbar and open Taskbar settings. From there, the Taskbar behaviors section contains a good chunk of the more advanced options.
One of the most visible changes is icon alignment. By default they’re centered, but you can move them to the left if you prefer a more classic layout. It’s a small tweak, but it noticeably changes the desktop “feel,” especially if you’re coming from older versions.
You can also automatically hide the taskbar, which is useful if you work on smaller screens or want a cleaner interface. When enabled, the taskbar disappears and comes back when you move the cursor to the bottom edge. It’s the kind of option that seems secondary… until you get used to it, and then there’s no going back.
In the same section, you can enable or disable app badges (visual alerts) and icon flashing when an application needs attention—two signals that can help you avoid missing important notifications or, if you hate visual noise, keep the desktop cleaner. And if an app freezes, here’s how to force close unresponsive apps in Windows.
There’s also a feature aimed at meetings: the ability to share windows from the taskbar in Microsoft Teams, letting you select a window by hovering over the app icon. It’s not something everyone uses every day, but for anyone living in video calls, it cuts steps and avoids the usual window-juggling dance.
Finally, Windows lets you enable quick access to the desktop via the far right end of the taskbar: a small area that, when clicked, shows the desktop without manually minimizing everything. And if you work with more than one monitor, there’s a setting to show the taskbar on all displays—one of those options that becomes essential in multi-monitor setups, if only to avoid losing your app launcher on the “wrong” screen.
